Pele’s real name is Edson Arantes do Nascimento. He was born on October 23, 1940 in Tres Coracoes, Minas Gerais state, southern Brazil. Pele’s father is former Fluminense player Dondinho. His mother was Celeste Arantes. In the family, Pele is the eldest brother, below him there is a younger sister.
Since childhood, because of poverty, he had to shine shoes to earn extra income for his family. Loved to play football but couldn’t afford a ball, Pele stuffed paper into socks to make balls to play with. Pele once recounted in his autobiography, Pele – Life and Times, about his childhood: “And so we existed. But as I got older, I began to understand what poverty is. Poverty is a curse that weakens the mind, drains the spirit, and poisons life. When we didn’t lack, even for simple things like enough food in the house or a small amount of money to pay the rent, we were very happy.
In that small house is filled with love to overcome difficulties. But there were also many heated arguments, bitter accusations, painful battles for lack of necessities, things that Dona Celeste’s mother insisted on taking for granted, because my father Dondinho was promised. appointment for that job”.
However, the love for the ball in the boy Pele never ceased. With the boys in the neighborhood, Pele started a soccer team called Ameriquinha to practice and participate in a local youth league.
At the age of 11, Pele caught the eye of Waldemar de Brito, a top player in the nation. Brito is said to have introduced Pele to the coaches of big teams, boldly declaring that Pele would be the greatest footballer in the world. Since then, Pele officially entered the professional football path when he joined Santos Club – the most professional team in Brazil at that time.
Under the shirt of the Sao Paulo state team, Pele quickly shined. At the age of 16, he scored his first career goal. And that same season, the young man won the title of top scorer.
In July 1957, at the age of 16 years and 9 months, Pele scored a goal to help Brazil beat rival Argentina 2-1 in the holy city of Maracana. The goal helped him still hold the record for the youngest player to score in the history of the Brazilian team.
Thanks to an impressive series of performances, Pele caught the eye of coach Vicente Feola. At the age of 17, young talent Santos caused a fever in the country of samba when he was called up to the Brazilian team for the 1958 World Cup.
The biggest football festival on the planet in Sweden became Pele’s show. Although only starting from the last match of the group stage due to a knee injury before the World Cup, the 17-year-old prodigy still shines with 6 goals, 1 goal in the quarterfinals, a hat-trick in the semi-finals and a brace in the final. ended, bringing Brazil to the top of the world for the first time.
The feat in the 1958 World Cup turned Pele into a living saint in the eyes of samba fans. With speed and virtuosity combined with the power of looks, Pele has been invited by the world’s top clubs. However, Pele was unable to move to Europe because of the incredible story. In 1961, the President of Brazil, Janio Quadros, decided to use his power to push the Parliament to introduce a law that considers Pele as… “national treasure” for 10 years. Therefore, during his career, Pele was almost exclusively with Santos, before moving to the US to take care of his old age in the New York Cosmos shirt.
Unable to compete at the top in Europe, Pele still makes the whole world go crazy every World Cup. He helped Brazil win two more titles in 1962 and 1970, and helped Selecao become the first team to score a hat-trick to win the championship and permanently win the Jules Rimet Gold Cup. Pele owns an unprecedented record, the only player to win the World Cup 3 times.
In 1999, Pele was voted by the International Federation of Football History & Statistics (IFFHS) as the best player of the 20th century. In the same year, the prestigious magazine France Football recommended the owners of the title of Ball. Gold chooses the best player of the century, and they choose Pele. Also in 1999, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) named Pele Athlete of the Century. While Time magazine has included the name of the King of Football in the list of 100 most influential people of the 20th century.
In 2013, Pele received the honorary FIFA Ballon d’Or award in recognition of his contributions as a global football icon. During his career, Pele has scored 1,281 goals in 1,363 games, including unofficial friendlies. This achievement helped the Brazilian legend enter the Guinness Book of Records for the most goals.
At the club level, Pele is currently Santos’s all-time leading goalscorer, and also led the Sao Paulo state team to win the Copa Libertadores two years in a row, 1962 and 1963. He was given many high nicknames by fans. precious: “King of football”.
In addition to her peak career, Pele’s private life also consumed a lot of press ink. In the peak years of youth, “Soccer King” used to be surrounded by many women and experienced lightning love affairs. Pele has been married three times. His marriage to his first wife ended in 1982.
12 years later, Pele got into a flower car with his second wife, singer Assiria, but this marriage lasted only 14 years. In the summer of 2016, he married again with his third wife, Marcia, and has lived happily ever since. However, at the age of 82, the health of the “Soccer King” was not really good and had to be hospitalized in his hometown of Brazil.
According to ESPN (Brazil), doctors discovered Pele had colon cancer in September 2021 when he carried out a series of routine exams that were postponed for 15 months because of the COVID-19 pandemic. In February this year, the football legend was also hospitalized for 2 weeks with a urinary tract infection, which made his cancer treatment more complicated. Recently, Pele was hospitalized in Sao Paulo in a worsening condition with signs of generalized edema and heart failure.
On December 3, the world press reported that former celebrity Pele was transferred to the “hospice care” by Albert Einstein Hospital in Brazil after the body no longer responded to chemotherapy to treat cancer. bowel letter. This makes many football fans worried about the health status of the Brazilian legend. However, before the 2022 World Cup finals, Pele posted the message “getting well soon” on social networks to reassure fans.
In 2020, Pele once made an emotional statement after the departure of “Golden Boy” Diego Maradona: “One day, Maradona and I will play football together in heaven”. And on December 30, 2022, the personal page of “Football King” updated the status line: “Inspiration and love marks the journey of “Football King” Pele, who passed away peacefully today today. “.
